Twitter has been a key player in the social media world and has been proven to be one of the best platforms for building awareness and increasing follower and brand engagement. Many Twitter users already follow their favourite brand, but what about those businesses they do not know about or are not aware of their Twitter existence?
Twitter advertising hosts several marketing products for companies and brands to help promote their businesses. Theses are promoted, accounts, promoted tweets and promoted trends. Full details on each product can be found directly on the Twitter business page.
Here are a few videos to visually explain how Twitter advertising works and benefits to a business:
Like any advertising product, Twitter advertising comes at a price. Costing companies roughly $150, 000 (in USA) to own a promoted trend topic for a day. Promoted tweets and accounts allows companies to appear at the top in most search results in Twitter or suggested lists to follow - this charges companies on the engagement, which are the number of clicks, retweets, favourites and replies.
Twitter advertising should be deemed as a marketing strategy. However, with the option to promote certain tweets, trends or account can add value to a public relations program but at a cost. Depending on the what companies need to communicate to the public about the brand, PR practitioners should not depend entirely on this strategy to engage with potential followers and/or customers. PR practitioners should weigh the value added by these promoted products and measure the return on investment.
Without a doubt, promoted tweets, accounts and trends fosters better brand awareness, engagement and loyalty. If properly used, PR practitioners can gain a favourable online community for their brand and be able to have direct connections with followers who are loyal to the brand. It is a great way to get in front of the public's eyes and "force" them to look at your tweet or generate curiousity around your promoted trend or account. However, good engagement and brand loyalty still requires excellent on-going relationship management. Using Twitter advertising to create awareness in the beginning is a great boost to kick start a campaign roll out but not entirely necessary to use frequently unless there is a campaign that needs to be communicated. In this article, 5 Proven Twitter Marketing Strategies, it provides good insight on how Twitter advertising should be executed properly.
I agree with your points and like the videos you posted. The Twitter Promoted Products are a fantastic compliment to a PR campaign or brand on Twitter, so long as they are used as part of an overall strategy of active conversation and relationship building, otherwise it just seems to me like one-way messaging a.k.a advertising. No matter how much money one spends on using these ad tools, the key thing is to be smart and creative in order to stand out, otherwise the return on investment may not be what was hoped for. Sometimes it takes more guts and brilliance than money to achieve viral reach on Twitter. ..Not sure about other people in class, but I rarely click on Promoted Trends or a Promoted Tweets unless it contains a super creative message or call to action or cause that immediately jumps out at me. Promoted Accounts I sometimes click on if I think the brand or angle is interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments as well - thanks! Exactly, if not properly executed these promoted products can just be one-way messaging, like you pointed out. I think it's a great way to be seen and sift through the abundance of messaging we see on a daily basis, especially on Twitter where the list of new tweets are on going and and fill up your news feed quite quickly. But without something valuable or meaningful to the audience, then it's just like looking at an ad banner. Yes, "call to action" is crucial!
ReplyDeleteThanks Larah for the videos. It didnt occur to me to look for them while fumbling the dark for what a promoted tweet looks like in a real setting.
ReplyDelete"Generating curiosity" is a great notion. Effective curtain raisers they could be, but the play probably needs real substance to keep people in their seats.
Hiedeh
Great post, and like the others, I agree with all the points you make. As future PR practitioners and as Twitter users, at least we have the option of pursuing a promoted trend or tweet if we choose. With other social media sites, we don't such a choice - the ads are staring at us in the face whether we like them or not! I liked the videos you posted; never thought of looking for them myself...
ReplyDelete